Note: The "Protected Witness" series is copyrighted
and cannot be disseminated without permission from the publisher, the Pittsburgh
Post-Gazette.Posted June 15, 1996

Deals with the devil:

Cloaked in secrecy, the witness protection program loses its innocence

Even in prison, Salvatore Gravano was every bit the braggart he was
on the streets of New York City.

He crowed to fellow inmates that he had killed 19 people --give or take
a few --during his career.

He regaled them with stories about his adventures in the Mafia.

He confided to all who would listen that it was his testimony that brought
down the feared John Gotti of New York's Gambino crime family.

And Gravano had something else to brag about. Because he gave prosecutors
information that helped convict Gotti, Gravano's own life of murderous
racketeering only cost him 3 1/2 years in prison. About three months per
body.

Using the federal Witness Security Program, commonly called the witness
protection program, federal officials traded a token prison sentence for
his testimony.

And, Gravano boasted again, he got to keep $8 million in illegally gained
assets and government rewards through his investment in crime.

Now free and rich, Gravano is living under an assumed name where unwitting
neighbors know nothing about his past.

He has joined a long list of multiple killers, powerful drug distributors
and other major criminals whose deals with the government are raising new
questions about a program originally designed to trade smaller criminals
for larger ones or to protect innocent citizens who risk their lives in
order to bring criminals to justice.

Government officials say Gravano's deal was worth it, since he helped
convict more than 50 other mob figures, making him one of the most significant
Mafia defectors ever.

But while his testimony temporarily crippled leadership of the New York
mob, its five crime families still exist, still thrive. In fact, John Gotti's
son has now taken control of the Gambino family.

Some say it's the witness protection program that is out of control.

A yearlong investigation by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has revealed
that the Witness Security Program has evolved in ways that were never intended
by its creators and which, at times, threaten public safety rather than
ensure it. These are among the findings:

Criminals who have been released from prison as part of their deal with
the Witness Security Program have gone on to commit scores of violent crimes,
including at least 20 murders. Because the identities of the protected
witnesses were often kept secret by the government, neither their neighbors
nor the local police had any idea about their violent pasts.

Some protected witnesses leave prison wealthy --if they even go to prison
--since the program pays to relocate them and returns large sums of money
they accumulated during their lives of crime, as well as adding lucrative
government rewards. In one case, the government moved a powerful drug dealer
and his entire extended family --including the baby sitter --from Panama
and settled them in the United States.

Two systems of justice have developed under the Witness Security Program.
High-profile criminals whose cooperation makes headlines often get big-money
deals from the government, which handles every detail in setting up their
new, secret lives, and protects them at every turn.

Then there are the others, the bulk of the 6,000 men and women in the program,
who are small-time thugs. Among them are those who give up their previous
lives, homes, and identities with little or no help even though the government
had promised it. One who testified for the government at some risk was
told he'd be protected. But when his prison term was up, he was dropped
off at the end of the prison driveway and told to take a cab to the airport.
The only money he was given to start his new life was $16 short of the
fare.

It is a program where snitching always has been the currency for freedom.
But increasingly the truth has little to do with anything. Seasoned convicts
have learned that while snitching once has kept them out of the death chamber,
snitching again and again can win freedom, even if the information they
are selling isn't true. One prosecutor fell victim to these scams in some
of the most notorious street gang cases in America.

The program is hidden so carefully under the veil of national security
that even the U.S. Congress, charged with oversight of the program, hasn't
held a hearing on the program in 14 years, despite substantial questions
raised about it in audits, news reports and civil complaints.

During the last hearing in 1982, which was called after a protected witness
killed at least six people in four states, federal officials apologetically
told Congress they were going to pull in the program's reins. Its budget
has grown by at least 80 percent since.

How it began

The Witness Security Program gained its first public attention in 1964
when Joseph Valachi, the first La Cosa Nostra member to publicly confirm
that the organized crime group existed, appeared before a congressional
committee.

Valachi was facing the death penalty after numerous convictions, including
the beating death of an inmate at the U.S. Penitentiary at Atlanta.

Then federal agents made him a deal. If he would tell them what he knew
about the Mafia, he would be freed and taken out of the country for his
protection.

But unlike Gravano or other modern-day organized crime figures who got
freedom and millions, Valachi got nothing more than solitary confinement
for protection and $15 a month in prison pay. Bewildered by the broken
promises, Valachi tried to commit suicide.

From this meager beginning, the program began to grow. In the early
1970s, it was estimated that "between 25 and 50 witnesses would be protected
each year at a cost of less than $1 million,'' according to a 1983 audit
of the program by the controller general of the United States.

By 1974, the government spent $3.1 million on 647 people admitted to
the program that year.

By 1982, when the program took in 324 new witnesses, the total budget
was $28.4 million. At the time, the Justice Department insisted the continued
and longstanding involvement from witnesses previously enrolled in the
program caused costs to soar.

Between 1989 and 1992, the program spent $138.2 million.

And for last year alone, the figure was $53 million.

The program gradually changed as it grew. Instead of solitary confinement
for safety purposes, protected witnesses who followed Valachi were kept
locked up in remote, highly secured sections of federal prisons or in remote
county jails, safe houses and hotel rooms.

That changed again when high-profile Mafia members like Angelo Lonardo
of Cleveland joined the program. Lonardo and other prize witnesses were
kept in out-of-the-way mountain retreats or beach houses guarded by deputy
U.S. marshals during their cooperation and confinement because the government
decided such accommodations were safer than any prison could be.

Then in the early 1980s, the managers of the program, the Justice Department's
Office of Enforcement Operations, institutionalized it by building the
first of five special prison units in Otisville, N.Y., Sandstone, Minn.,
Phoenix, Allenwood, Pa., and Fairton, N.J.

Once out of prison, the witnesses usually get new names, new Social
Security cards and trips to their new homes. And unless they strike lucrative
deals like Gravano's, they'll get monthly stipends of as much as $2,000
for 18 months or until the government decides their lives are stabilized.
They might get small grants to start businesses. They might get money for
second-hand cars. But within two years, most of them are severed from the
program and fade into the relative comfort of anonymity.

But some can't seem to stay there. They find it easier to change their
identities, their homes, their jobs and even their families, than they
do their bad habits. It's violence and havoc no matter where they live.

Murderers released

The 1983 audit of the Witness Security Program concluded that protected
witnesses have been involved in numerous crimes after they were freed.

"Auditors identified seven witnesses who have been convicted of murder,
one who is currently charged with murder, and indications that four others
were charged with murders. Other serious crimes committed by witnesses
include arson, robbery and assorted drug violations,'' the audit says.

A second audit done in 1992 repeated those findings and added figures
for 1989. One-fifth of all witnesses admitted to the program that year
committed crimes while they were in the program. But the audit also observed
that witness program officials refused to provide sufficient information
for the study to be complete.

According to research done by the Post-Gazette, at least 20 murders
have been committed by protected witnesses, including those by Marion Pruett.

Pruett was a drug addict and twice-convicted bank robber who was imprisoned
in the penitentiary in Atlanta. In 1978 he told officials there that he
witnessed the murder of his cellmate, then testified against the supposed
killer. For his testimony, he gained freedom and admission to the witness
protection program. Years later, he told police officers in New Mexico
his story was a lie; that he actually did the killing, then pinned it on
someone else in an elaborate plan to get into the program.

By that time, Pruett had been relocated to Albuquerque with his common-law
wife. Sometime in the next two years, he beat her to death with a hammer,
chopped her body in pieces, then took it to a remote desert where he doused
it with gasoline and burned it.

Then he went on a cross-country rampage, robbing banks in Bridgeville,
Pa., and several other cities. He also killed at least five more people
before he was caught in 1981.

One of the outgrowths of Pruett's crimes was a hearing before a subcommittee
of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee where several congressmen called
for the end of the witness program.

Then Associate Attorney General Rudolph Guiliani, who used the program
later while he was U.S. attorney for the southern district of New York,
said he was considering a "strict quota system" to only use the program
in "one or two really major cases" a year.

And he vowed to improve the program so that the Pruett experience would
not be repeated.

But a decade later, the program allowed James Red Dog to leave prison
and move to a neighborhood in Wilmington, Del.

Red Dog had been convicted of four killings before he snitched on two
other prisoners who he said helped him murder another inmate at the U.S.
Penitentiary at Marion, Ill.

Red Dog told authorities that through his wife, he had smuggled poison
into the prison to kill a thieving inmate who snorted the substance, thinking
it was cocaine.

He named two inmates who, he said, helped him in the murder.

For his testimony, Red Dog's wife was admitted into the witness program,
and he followed her to Delaware shortly after his release from a protected
witness prison.

Four years later, in 1991, Red Dog attacked a Wilmington resident, nearly
beheading him with a hunting knife during a violent rage. Then he abducted
his victim's mother and raped her repeatedly until she escaped.

In 1993, Red Dog was executed in Delaware.

The grief Red Dog caused was a high price to pay for what the federal
prosecutors got: The two inmates Red Dog testified against to gain his
release from prison were both acquitted of the crime.

Keeping the money

In order to do combat in the war on drugs, the federal government often
seizes the money and property of drug dealers. But if the drug dealers
snitch on others and enter the Witness Security Program, they often get
their freedom and keep their millions.

When the U.S. government was preparing its racketeering case against
former Panamanian president Manuel Noriega, it offered witness protection
to some of the biggest drug dealers in the world.

In exchange for their testimony against Noriega, at least 20 members
of drug cartels around the world received drastically reduced or token
prison sentences and were released, along with their drug money. One is
Max Mermelstein, a Miami dealer who told prosecutors Noriega had taken
payoffs from the Medellin cartel in exchange for allowing smugglers to
use his country as a way-station for drug shipments. He served less than
two years despite admitting to smuggling 56 tons of cocaine worth $12.5
billion into this country. He is now free and living under an assumed name
with his massive wealth.

Floyd Carlton Canceres, a former Noriega pilot and Panamanian military
official, admitted to smuggling 1,000 kilograms of cocaine worth $25 million
and faced a sentence of life plus 145 years in prison until he helped prosecutors
with Noriega. He was released after only two years in a protected witness
unit, followed by three years of parole. The government paid $211,681 for
Carlton's living expenses, which included the purchase of a car. His deal
included relocation of more than 20 members of his family, including a
baby sitter.

Carlton was not required to forfeit any of his wealth or property he
owns in Panama.

Even while protected witnesses are still in prison, they lead lives
considerably more comfortable than do other prisoners. In fact, the witness
units are unlike any other prisons in the world.

In ordinary prisons, telephone calls are usually limited to a few a
week, and collect calls are the only ones allowed.

But in the protected witness units, the prisoners get free use of federal
telephones and can call anywhere in the world at taxpayers' expense. Protected
witnesses in favor with prosecutors get unlimited access to the phones.

In addition, they are permitted to use their own money to buy food,
appliances, jewelry, athletic equipment, and just about anything from any
place that will deliver.

"I ate lobster, crab meat, we even roasted a pig once,'' said George
E. Taylor Jr., who spent almost six years in the protected witness units.

Each inmate is provided with a color television with cable that includes
pay-per-view so they can watch programming ranging from prize fights to
pornographic movies.

In addition, all of the protected witnesses interviewed for these reports
say illegal drugs or prescribed mind-altering drugs are easy to get in
the unit.

Two systems of justice

Once outside of prison, protected witnesses seem to fall into two categories:
The powerful, who are given what they were promised --a new name, a new
home, a new life. And the low-level snitches, whose relationship with the
witness program ends abruptly after they've given up what they know. Big
shots and highfliers while they're telling their secrets, they find themselves
suddenly out there alone, without a net. Among this group are those who
complain that they've been lied to by the same dealmakers who have turned
them into snitches.

George Taylor is one who felt abandoned. A former drug dealer, armed
robber and massage parlor operator, he actually did more time in prison
because he snitched than if he would have kept his mouth shut and simply
served out his robbery sentence. After setting up several drug dealers,
he was transferred into the witness protection program, a move which caused
him to miss so many parole hearings that he served almost two years more
than his minimum sentence.

For his cooperation, Taylor said, he was to get a new identity, relocated
and given seed money to forge a new life. But on his release date at the
Federal Correctional Institution at Phoenix, the government changed the
plans.

Instead of being set up with an anonymous life in a new home, Taylor
was handed a plane ticket and $30 and shown the prison door.

He said the change of heart occurred when officials learned that he
planned to publicly discuss the program.

He has since been repeatedly threatened with revocation of his parole.
Recently, he was ordered back to Missouri by parole officials, despite
the government's own assessment that more than 40 people want to harm him.

Since he was freed last June, his home was burglarized by someone who
seemed to be only interested in records and he was held by two deputy U.S.
marshals for about six hours. He has taped conversations with his Missouri
parole agent who said federal officials have been in constant contact with
her about his status.

The government actions have increased his resolve.

"I would never, ever, rat again.''

In conversations with his parole officer, federal officials depict Taylor
as a vengeful liar. During the time they were using his information, however,
Taylor passed repeated government-administered polygraph tests and the
information he provided stood up.

But he and nearly everyone interviewed about the program say it has
become a bastion of liars who fabricate stories to trade for their freedom.

Liars

William Koopman, an associate of the mob in Buffalo, N.Y., admitted to
being involved in seven murders but volunteered to testify against many
of his friends in exchange for a five-year prison sentence. In one gangland
murder case early in 1990, Koopman named another mobster as the man who
put a bullet into the head of a small-time crook. The man was convicted
of murder and Koopman was freed, as promised.

But in 1995, seven months after he was freed, Koopman was called to
testify in a post-trial hearing on the murder case. This time, he said
he was the shooter.

"You pulled the trigger?'' the attorney asked.

"Yes.''

"You lied about that at trial, didn't you?''

"In trial, yeah,'' Koopman said.

That startling revelation has fueled appeals in at least 10 cases that
Koopman testified in.

But what dumbfounded the defense lawyers is that after Koopman revealed
he lied, several local, state and federal officials admitted they had known
or suspected for years that Koopman was the actual shooter in that case.

Nevertheless, prosecutors on state and federal levels still used Koopman's
testimony repeatedly during that time. And despite clear language in his
agreement with the witness program that if he was caught lying he could
be prosecuted, Koopman has not been charged with murder, perjury or anything
else. Today, after five years in a protected witness prison, Koopman is
free.

Federal officials haven't commented, but Frank Clark, assistant district
attorney in Buffalo, said there are no plans to charge Koopman.

According to protected witnesses who were interviewed for this story,
Koopman's story is not unusual. The witness protection system is littered
with liars, they say, who know that damaging testimony --true or not --can
be their ticket to freedom.

Secrecy

Because the backbone of the Witness Security Program is its promise to
protect witnesses by keeping their whereabouts secret, the $53 million-a-year
program operates without much public scrutiny.

Only three complete audits have been conducted in more than 20 years.
The congressional committee charged with oversight of the program had its
last public hearing in 1982.

Witnesses in the program who are unhappy with the results say their
criticism is often muzzled by the government.

In 1991, James Cardinali, a New York City mobster who testified under
the program, stood in front of the U.S. District Courthouse in Albuquerque
with a lunch-board adorned with a bull's eye around his neck. He said the
government had abandoned him, marking him for death after he was used as
a witness.

Like other witnesses who have made brief forays into the public eye
while they are in the program, Cardinali disappeared only a few days later,
after he was jailed on a parole violation for leaving his assigned state
without permission to go to Washington, D.C., to appear on Larry King's
CNN talk show. His whereabouts and his fate are unknown.